


Incision

by Ccainao3



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, M/M, Miscarriage, Pre-Relationship, mean things happen to damen for 10k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:55:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29391573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ccainao3/pseuds/Ccainao3
Summary: The Akeilon loses the fight.
Relationships: (Pre) Damen/Laurent, Damen & Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 54





	Incision

The Akielon loses the fight.

He had not shown fear, when he’d seen Govart at the other side of the ring, though he must have been feeling the chalis at that point. He had not shown fear when Govart had tried to gouge out his eyes with his thumbs, and indeed had fought back without a qualm, barbarically eager for battle. He might have won, had Govart’s lucky blow not taken him hard in the nose. There had been no fear when Govart had taken advantage of his daze to flip him over, when he’d hauled his arms up behind him in a grip that must have been painful. There is still no fear on his face, even with his nose broken and his cheek ground into the dirt. Just rage.

And pain.

It hurts, what Govart is doing. Laurent knows that intimately.

The nobles of the Veretian court are jeering in a way that they would condemn as vulgar in another crowd. They don’t cheer like this for the regular matches. It must be the thrill of seeing a hated Akielon, humbled beneath one of their own. Laurent can barely hear the noise over the ringing in his ears. Akielons have gladiator matches, he remembers Guion saying. They wrestle in the nude. It’s barbaric.

Govart grunts loudly and comes.

Damianos, who has not once stopped fighting (so different from Laurent, who had wept and begged forgiveness for weeping, and later lain there like a dead fish) takes advantage of Govart’s loosened grip on his hair to perform a smooth movement that sends his opponent over his shoulder onto the ground. Govart rolls with it, staggering to his feet, shock and rage knocking the smug look off his face. Damianos tries to stand and fails, and Govart starts towards him.

“I think that’s quite enough,” someone says. Everyone looks at Laurent, so it must have been him.

Govart glares but acquiesces. He gives an insult of a bow, barely more than a nod of the head, yanks his breeches on without cleaning himself up, and stalks off. Damianos stays on his knees, ( _how fitting_ , Laurent hears his own voice drawl) and reaches up with both hands to prod at his clearly-broken nose. He’s facing away from Laurent. There are streaks of white sliding down smooth olive-skinned thighs. He’s probably never been fucked before. It’s an interesting sensation, for an alpha. Laurent knows that intimately, too.

“Someone ought to fetch the physician,” Laurent hears himself say. “Wouldn’t want to ruin my new pet’s face.”

Damianos’ shoulders tighten and relax, and then the right twitches as his hand makes a sudden yanking motion. There’s an awful _click_ and the crowd facing him makes noises of horror. One nobleman even gags. Damianos makes no noise, but slams his fist hard into his thigh, clutching at his face with the other hand. Blood pours from his nose anew, drenching the sand between his knees.

Berenger, at the other side of the ring, gets up suddenly, pulling a handkerchief from his belt. It’s a big cotton square, very practical. Berenger is a practical man. He offers it to the man on his knees. Laurent sees his face in profile as he looks up at Berenger in surprise. His nose looks straight, now, but it’s already swelling. Had it been broken when Damianos arrived in Arles, Laurent might not have recognized him.

“Thank you,” Damianos says, in polite formal Veretian. He holds it gently to his face.

“A physician would not be a bad idea, your highness,” Berenger says. He is receiving glares from everyone in the room, and ignoring them with aplomb. He looks unhappy, though, when he meets Laurent’s eyes.

“I need a bath more than a physician, your highness.” Damianos speaks up suddenly, still not looking at Laurent. His voice is surprisingly even.

“Why not both,” Laurent’s voice says. His limbs coordinate to stand, and his fingers click themselves together as if summoning a dog. Damianos stands as well, slowly but steadily, and walks after Laurent, whose mouth murmurs courtesies to the courtiers as they move.

“What a battle,” Audin jokes as they pass, his arm draped around Nicaise in an avuncular fashion. His voice goes sickeningly sweet when he speaks to the boy. “It would be anticlimactic to put you in there after that, I suppose, my dear–“

Laurent’s feet come to a stop. He distantly feels his tongue wetting his lips, mind reeling as he tries to think of something to say. Nicaise is pale, his lips pressed together, trying his best not to look at Laurent.

“I’ll go again,” someone says, in Akielon.

Laurent’s jerks his head to look at him. Damianos has pulled Berenger’s handkerchief from his face. The blood has mostly stopped flowing. He gazes at Laurent with the already-familiar hatred, mingled now with desperation.

“What?” Laurent blurts.

“I’ll go again,” Damianos says. “Find anyone you like, I’ll lose again if you want, but don’t– you can’t do that to a child.” His throat works like the word is choking him, but finally he grits out “Please.”

Laurent can’t breathe. Or speak, for a moment. “Did you enjoy the experience so much?” he finally inquires. At least now his voice feels like it’s coming from him.

“He’s a child,” Damianos says. There is a new look in his eyes. Laurent realizes that here, at last, is the fear he wanted to see in the ring. _Oh,_ he thinks hysterically. _It was that simple._

“What’s he saying?” Audin asks.

“Nothing worth taking notice of,” Laurent says. “But I sincerely doubt Nicaise’s master would be pleased to hear he had been used in such a manner.” He stares at Audin until the man blanches.

“Of course, I would never–“

“Of course,” says Laurent. There’s an exhale from behind him that sounds a lot like relief, and it’s suddenly intolerable to continue to stand here. The walls are closing in on him. _Please. I’ll go again._

“I’m going riding,” he announces, to no one in particular. He snaps his fingers at Huet. “Take him back to Radel and send a physician.”

He stalks from the room before the walls can swallow him whole. Laughter and talk rise behind him.

* * *

He does not stop to think until he has ridden his horse into a lather. He himself is sweating. His thighs will ache tomorrow. He pulls his mare to a stop in the little grove of trees he and Auguste used to visit, and loosens her saddle girth so she can drink from the stream.

He tries to break Damianos’ words down into components. _I’ll lose again if you want_ was arrogance, plain and simple. The Akielon didn’t want to admit he’d been bested, or that he could be bested again. _You can’t do that to a child_ was idiocy– as if much worse things don’t happen to children in the barbaric hellhole Damianos calls a country. As is Damianos, rapacious as all Akielons were, wouldn’t have delighted in watching, and participating. But the offer– the _please_ –

Laurent used to have nightmares of Damianos. He used to go to his uncle for comfort. The man in those dreams had not spoken Damianos’ flawless Veretian– had not spoken Veretian at all beyond a few coarse commands. _Be quiet. Bend over. Scream_. Of course, Damianos was not the one saying those things to him when he was awake.

Laurent is getting distracted. It must be a trick, he decides.

Well. Laurent will not be defeated by a witless barbarian. The man desires Laurent, despite his hatred. Perhaps because of it; he’ll want to throw Laurent down, take his revenge. Laurent can use that.

* * *

He does not need to.

The steam in the baths is warm. The Akielon’s face is a purpled disaster. They trade words, back and forth. In the end, all it takes is a crude enquiry– _Did you enjoy being bred like a bitch in heat?_ – for Laurent to find himself gasping on the ground, curled up around his stomach.

Damianos stares down at him, his breathing speeding up. It’s not quite fear in his gaze, then, just the knowledge of coming pain.

Laurent will take what he can get.

* * *

The Akielon takes the flogging as well as anyone can. He grunts, but does not scream. He insults Laurent again when they pause. Then, suddenly, a gasp. He’s trying to talk through the gag. Tears run down his face.

Laurent is…

Laurent turns around and walks away.

* * *

After his uncle’s little farce, after Laurent has lost the lands he shouldn’t have inherited anyway, he walks with Herode in the gardens where he used to run with Auguste.

“I was a friend of your father,” Herode says. “I will always be a friend to the throne of Vere.”

It’s not quite a ringing endorsement of Laurent, but he’ll take it. He’s doing that a lot lately.

When he returns to where he left his Akielon slave, there’s a small crowd gathered. A much smaller man, obviously an omega, is debasing himself beside him in a smaller version of Damianos’ own collar and cuffs. Damianos is, technically, kneeling, but still manages to give the impression of looking down on everyone around him. His eyes bore into Laurent’s with all the submission of an avalanche.

“We were wondering if your slave could provide another, ah, performance,” says Vannes.

“I’d be happy to perform with him,” purrs Ancel, an alpha pet so delicate-looking that, had anyone but incessantly-proper Berenger arrived with him, there would have been rumors he was an omega.

Vannes actually is an omega, a rarity in the Regent’s court. She usually makes a show of her interest in the court games, though Laurent is never certain how sincere it is. “I wouldn’t mind watching that,” she drawls.

Damianos doesn’t even look at her. “No,” he says, as if he actually expects to be obeyed.

Laurent almost says yes. What stops him, oddly enough, is the omega slave, who breaks his perfectly submissive posture to look up at Damianos with obvious concern. “I cannot imagine Ancel capable of improving on Govart’s efforts,” Laurent drawls instead.

Damianos makes an aborted jerking motion that draws everyone’s attention. “Chain him to the metal,” Laurent says. He offers his arm. “Lady Vannes, will you take a turn around the garden with me?”

The paths curve around each other. They end up back behind the two kneeling slaves. Laurent’s Akielon is good enough to understand the “is your master kind?” from the smaller one.

The bitter laugh he gets in answer requires no translation.

* * *

Radel tells him the slave has summoned him. Not summoned; requested an audience. It’s a quick conversation. What sticks with him when he pauses in the hallway after are not the slave’s words ( _To abuse someone who cannot resist– isn’t that monstrous?_ ) but the mere fact that he had appealed at all. A bargain, offered. His life, his pride. How long had he been planning this? How long had he been sitting in that cell, knowing what he planned to do, with nothing left to think about but the many, many ways Laurent could make him uphold his end of the bargain?

Stupid, not to think Laurent would take advantage of it. Stupid and short-sighted. Laurent wouldn’t hurt the other slaves, of course, but Damianos had no way of knowing that. Laurent had certainly given him no reason to think that.

 _Damn,_ he thought. Aloud– “I wish to speak with the slave from the gardens.”

* * *

Almost against his will, Laurent end up helping the Akielon. Torveld of Patras is easy to manage– he takes one look at Laurent’s pretty eyes and pretty hair and falls under his spell. Torveld of Patras is more than twice Laurent’s age. Laurent finds his skin crawling, sometimes, when he smiles back at him.

Damianos is seated between Laurent and Nicaise. Laurent vaguely hears him speak gently to the boy (disregarding Laurent’s warning about him) and then he flinches, suddenly.

“I made your pet jump,” says Nicaise, holding a bloody fork, and Laurent has trouble concealing a smile.

“Did you like getting fucked by Govart?” Nicaise asks. “The rest of us liked watching.”

Laurent no longer has any trouble concealing a smile.

“Govart?” Torveld asks, dragging his eyes from Laurent.

Laurent ought to respond with something clever. Instead, the silence drags on.

The Akielon smiles tightly at Torveld. _You and Govart are two of a kind,_ he’d said once. “I lost a wrestling match, your highness,” he says, in perfect Patran. He really is the worst liar Laurent has ever encountered. “Our host’s traditions might not mesh well with Patran sensibilities.”

* * *

Laurent should have known that their– _his_ – success would not go unpunished. Watching the horse die is… not even close to watching Auguste fall, screaming on the ramparts at Marlas. Not even close to seeing Father’s body, borne back to the tents on a litter. Not even close to watching Mother get thinner and thinner until she faded away.

It’s silly, then, to be as upset as he is.

* * *

When the Akielon is led to his room he is not entirely surprised. Uncle has already tried to kill him once, after all. When the Akielon saves him, though, that is… surprising. And Laurent finds, to his self-directed fury, that he cannot help but return the favor.

* * *

They ride for Chastillon a week later. Laurent keeps Nicaise’s earring in his pocket.

* * *

Govart, his new captain, is insolent as usual. Laurent leaves his meeting with him in a black rage, which is lifted only a little by confusion when he walks into his chambers and finds Damianos has rearranged his furniture. He’s taken the small table from beside the bed and put it on the rug before the fireplace; on it rest three lit candles, a bowl of orange slices, and a few half-crushed, sad-looking flowers. Laurent half-recalls seeing the Akielon pick up a dandelion at the lunch stop. Now he’s on his knees before the table-turned-altar, not with the submissive posture of a supplicant but in the inelegant slump of someone who has been there for a while. There’s an unhappy set to his full mouth, though when he sees Laurent his expression shutters in a way Laurent had not thought him capable of. He doesn’t move.

Some odd Akielon ritual? Ready with a dry remark about barbarian superstition, Laurent remembers a book he’d read during the ride to Marlas. He’d been eager to learn as much as he could of Akielos, stupidly fantasizing he’d discover something that would help defeat the invaders. He’d recited everything he’d learned to a patient Auguste as they rode. Three candles are for mourning.

Rage swells up again, so fast it leaves him breathless. “Such sorrow, for the death of Theomedes?” he hears himself inquire. “Were you too distracted by your worry for him to notice Kastor, plotting against Damianos?”

Damianos sways a little, like he’s been dealt a physical blow. He doesn’t answer. Leans in to blow the candles out.

Annoyance pricks at Laurent, and something different, almost like concern. Where is the man who had mocked his Akielon? The man who had taunted him about how long the pleasure drug lasted? This giant curly-haired lump is taking the altar apart without even looking at him, tucking the flowers carefully into his pocket.

“I know little of Akielon superstition,” Laurent says. He recalls his reading from before Marlas. “Will you be shaving your head? Tearing your clothes? Should I expect you to rise at dawn and wail your grief to the heavens? If you wake me up with that I’ll have your front striped to match your back.”

Damianos jerks his head up at the last one, and Laurent almost flinches at the murder in his eyes. He bites his lip hard as he gets himself back under control, picks up the table with exaggerated care, like he could crush it if he isn’t careful, and carries it through the open foyer into the bedroom, towards the big red bed Laurent has thus far avoided looking at. He drops it deliberately back into place at the side of the bed, then comes back into the room with the fireplace. This close, Laurent can see a smear of oil on his forehead, a clumsily painted rune. Common kitchen oil, from the scent, though he recalls reading that nobles in Akielos used jasmine.

“How long does one generally have to wear that on one’s face?” Laurent enquires. The silence is starting to trouble him. “And you have yet to answer my other questions.”

“No,” Damianos says. He leans down to add another log to the fireplace. “I won’t be shaving my head or tearing my clothes. Or painting the sign of the ekthanos again. There’s a prayer but I don’t remember it, so I can’t say it. I’ll need to rise at dawn tomorrow and light another candle. Assuming you have no objection. Your highness.”

“I ought to have one, I suppose.” Laurent examines his nails idly. “Don’t you think it’s a little insulting, to be in service to the prince of Vere and in mourning for the king of Akielos? Surely I should not countenance such disrespect.”

No response. Damianos stares into the fire, reaches out for the poker beside it.

That edge of concern pricks at him again. “I asked you a question, slave.”

“It’s for the child,” Damianos says tightly. He shifts the logs with the poker.

“What child?”

Damianos finally looks at him. His gaze starts out furious and then melts into confusion as he sees Laurent is sincere.

“The… child,” he says. “Paschal did not tell you?”

Laurent feels something cold and slimy slide down the back of his neck. “What child?”

Damen’s hand touches his stomach in a manner that’s utterly familiar, but so incongruent Laurent’s mind rejects it as a trick of the light. “The child,” Damianos says again, dashing those hopes. “The one I… lost.”

The room is spinning around him. The bed Uncle fucked him on seems to swell in size. He gropes for the back of the chair.

“Prince Laurent?”

“You’re an omega,” he hears someone say.

“Yes. Are you– should I fetch Paschal?”

 _Paschal._ Laurent snatches the name like a drowning man. The Akielon is clearly attempting some sort of trick. (Laurent is surprised. He had not thought the man capable of such a blow.) Paschal will confirm Damianos is lying. “No,” he says anyway. “I will– I will go to him.”

Damianos evinces no concern at the thought that his ruse will soon be up. “Have you been drugged again?”

“No,” Laurent manages. He forces his legs to start moving.

“You didn’t know?” calls a voice behind him.

* * *

“Yes, he’s an omega,” Paschal says, rubbing his face. He looks like a man of late middle years who has ridden more miles in a day than he usually rides in a month, and then been dragged from his bed to answer Laurent’s snapped-out questions.

“And he was pregnant?”

“Yes,” says Paschal.

“Before… in Akielos, surely,” Laurent says. “That– when was the child conceived?”

Paschal looks at him. Laurent realizes there is… disappointment, in his gaze. Laurent cannot recall the last time he disappointed anyone. He hadn’t though he had anyone left to disappoint. “The father was almost certainly Govart,” Paschal says. “The pregnancy was very new.”

“Would he have even known?”

“He would have known that night,” Paschal says. “Omegas know immediately. There is a pain at the implantation. He asked me for some sort of contraceptive when I tended to him. They are not forbidden in Akielos. I told him they were in Vere.”

“When you tended to him today?”

“When I tended to him after the fight. It’s a miracle he could still talk, chalis has a stronger effect on omegas.”

 _When I tended to him after the fight._ Somehow, when Laurent had ordered a physician for his raped and beaten slave, he had not thought it would be Paschal. Paschal, who had bandaged his scraped knees, and given him salve after his uncle took his pleasure. He had probably given Damianos the same one.

“And the… it was the flogging.”

“Almost certainly.”

The Akielon wept, at the end. Laurent walked away.

Laurent makes himself look Paschal in the eyes. There’s sympathy there, which he finds even less pleasant than the disapproval lurking beside it. Paschal has tended many of his uncle’s toys.

“Is it your will that I find him some contraception, your highness?” Paschal asks, with a kind of stoic brutality Laurent half-admires.

“There will be no need,” Laurent manages. The rusty cogs of his brain manage to spit out something useful. “Just a heat suppressant, if you can.”

“Are you certain, your highness?” It’s a frosty inquiry.

Laurent gets up and leaves.

Auguste used to mutter to himself, when he heard the people of the court speak ill of omegas. He’d fought a duel once, with an alpha who had beaten her omega wife. _If you present as an omega, I will never allow anyone to disrespect you or hurt you,_ he’d told Laurent. _I will protect you. And if you present as an alpha, you must do the same for any omega under your care._

Auguste was the only one who even raised the possibility that Laurent would present as an alpha. Everyone else knew that Laurent– pretty, slender Laurent– was supposed to be an omega. When he presented as an alpha instead, there was delight among the other alphas of the court. No worries existed of siring a bastard, and he had an omega–like prettiness that meant even those alphas usually uninterested in their fellows might be drawn to him. Between that and Uncle, Laurent thought he had known how the court’s omegas must have felt, pursued by someone stronger, who would not give up. He’d counted himself a better man, for knowing that.

Laurent’s wandering has brought him to the doors of Chastillon’s small library. His hand lingers on the door handle, but he pulls it away. He doesn’t want to touch the books, not with… not now.

_Is it your will that I find him some contraception, your highness?_

Damianos had asked Paschal for it. He’d expected– more of the same. And why wouldn’t he expect it? Laurent ducks into the library anyway, unwilling to remain in the open hallway while unable to control the look on his face. There’s a few torches lit, a fire in the grate. No one is there, though. Laurent sags back against the door.

This is absurd. Omega or not, Damianos had killed Auguste; had almost certainly permitted similar abuses to happen in his own country, had almost certainly committed them himself. He deserved everything he got.

Damianos. An omega. His concern for the other Akielons. The slave Erasmus, saying _he comforted me._ Saving Laurent’s life, for the sole reason that he was unarmed and alone. The pathetic, crumpled flowers on that little table. _There’s a prayer but I don’t remember it, so I can’t say it._

That thought strikes a chord. Laurent moves for the nearest bookshelf.

The volumes on Akielos are where he remembers them, shoved onto the lowest shelf at the back of the library. He’d wanted them out of the palace, at the time. There’s a volume of history written by a Veretian author who notes every few pages that the Akielon savages told entirely different versions of the history he related, and a book of recipes and sage advice written by a castle cook on the border. Two translations of the _Hypenor_. An incredibly dry account of Laurent’s great-grandfather’s campaign to retake Delfeur from Euandros. Then, at the bottom of the stack, a little book of translated hymns, Akielon on one side of the page and Veretian on the other.

Damianos is asleep on the slave pallet when Laurent returns to the room. He’s barbarically shirtless, the firelight playing over endless planes of muscle. He couldn’t look less like an omega if he tried; except, when Laurent quietly places the book next to his head, he notices how the flames paint the outward curve of his hip. The slight padding over his chest and stomach, what he had taken for a layer of protective fat but now looks like an omega’s softness. The full lips, the soft chin.

The scars, newly healing.

Laurent wasn’t supposed to be an alpha. He wasn’t supposed to be king, either.

He makes himself go lie in the bed. It’s where he belongs.

* * *

Damianos doesn’t wake Laurent in the morning only because Laurent is not asleep, has been staring at the ceiling since he laid down. He used to look up at this ceiling with Uncle inside him. He wonders what Damianos was looking at. Laurent himself? The dirt of the ring? The cheering crowd?

Damianos seems to be making an effort to move quietly, at least. Laurent hears a muffled noise of surprise, and then softly flipping pages. He’s found the book. Laurent looks through the red curtains around the bed, watches Damianos’ huge form duck out of the room, carrying a candle and shielding the flame with his hand. The guards on the door challenge him, but he quiets them with an audible “I have permission. Wake him up and ask him if you don’t believe me.”

Laurent ought to have words with his guards.

When Damianos returns, Laurent has assembled himself at the table and ordered a breakfast he cannot stand the thought of eating. He has a task to complete, and has already lost a night; he will not allow himself to be further distracted by sentiment. To that end– “Sit,” he says.

Damianos sits. Laurent cannot prevent himself from checking his eyes for redness, but there is none to find.

Laurent reaches for a goblet. Damianos’ eyes follow it warily. “It’s just water,” Laurent says. “Probably. Your virtue’s safe.” Too late, he realizes what he’s said.

Damianos looks… considering, more than anything. The rage in his eyes is not… diminished, but overshadowed by something else. “Do you want the book back?”

Laurent cannot help the teetering feeling that he has lost control of the conversation already. “You want to discuss literature?”

“Did you think to assuage me with a kind gesture?” Damianos says it with confusion rather than indignation.

“I think,” said Laurent, “that you want to kill me very badly. I think that someday, you will attempt it, and on that day we roll the dice and see how they fall. Until then, you are under my command. I will hear reasoned objections in private, but I will not tolerate disobedience. If you give it, I will not hesitate to send you back to the flogging post.”

“Have I disobeyed an order?” Damianos asks rhetorically.

Laurent takes another sip of water. “You will not reveal yourself to be an omega,” he says. “It would be inappropriate for us to be together unchaperoned.” He feels almost embarrassed, saying it out loud.

Damianos gives him a long look. Something in the set of his shoulders seems to relax. “You truly did not know?”

Laurent glares at him. “You are aware of the Veretian opinion of bastardry, yes? How could I have been permitted to keep an omega as my pet?” He has been wondering if this was part of Uncle’s plot, to get him to sire a bastard on the Akielon Prince-killer.

“I didn’t think everyone else knew,” Damen says. “Most assume I’m an alpha. I thought _you_ knew.”

“Why would you think I knew?”

Damianos has his full bottom lip between his teeth. “What you said… in the baths,” he says at last.

 _Did you enjoy being bred like a bitch in heat?_ Laurent did say that. He remembers saying that.

“I realize this will sound… self-serving,” says Damianos, after the silence has dragged on, “but you must replace Govart as captain. Your troop is designed to tear itself apart. Your uncle’s men will pick fights with yours, and Govart will do nothing but encourage it.”

Laurent takes another, languid sip of water. “You will stay away from Govart.”

“I’m not going to attack him.”

“Shall I repeat my instruction?”

“How, exactly, am I supposed to stay away from him? He already followed me up to the armory muttering filth at me.” There’s nothing but scorn in his voice.

 _You should toss him a pet to keep him off the men_ , Jord said in the courtyard before they left. Laurent was not looking at Damianos. He does not know if Damianos flinched when he heard it. He thinks he did not.

“If he touches me, I’ll kill him,” Damianos says. “I’ll take another flogging for it if you deem that necessary, your highness.”

Laurent doesn’t think anyone has ever managed to imbue his title with that much disdain. Not even Uncle. “Govart will not be a problem for much longer. Until then, you will stay close to me.”

“Yes, I’ll be much safer there,” Damianos says.

* * *

The first step, as always, is to gather information. In addition to lengthy late-night talks with Damianos, half-awkward discussions of strategy and terrain, Laurent listens to his soldiers. He lurks outside tents, makes inquiries among the servants, seeks out the quietest members of the troop, the ones who speak little and hear much. He formulates a plan. He also hears gossip he does not expect.

Laurent is no stranger to overhearing mutterings about himself, and is not surprised by it now. If his sworn guard could not restrain themselves from endless discussion of his face and his ass and whether or not he was a virgin, mercenaries chosen specifically for their poor quality could hardly do better. Nevertheless, what he had not expected, for some reason, is the speculation about Damianos. Not the speculation that he bends Laurent over now. _That_ he expected. What he hadn’t expected is– well.

He doesn’t know why he hadn’t expected it.

Everyone knows about the ring. Laurent’s doesn’t think it’s his guard that tells the story to the Regent’s men; they’ve no love for the mercenaries and a good few of them had amassed a vague respect for Damianos, at least before the aftermath of the flogging. It must be Govart that speaks of it initially, drunk around the campfire late at night. Regardless of who initiates it, Damianos is beset on all sides by mockery. The men, like the court, enjoy the thought of an Akielon being bested. Being humiliated. There are whistles and shouts whenever he goes outside. He fetches their supper every evening, and for three days straight a mercenary waits outside the kitchen tent to follow him back to Laurent’s, yelling insults so vile that on the third day Jord shouts back at the man, gets in a fight with him, and is subsequently bawled out by Govart. Govart himself, of course, leers whenever he sees him, and twice asks Laurent if he’s willing to rent out his slave again.

Again, because Laurent already did it once.

Damianos does not obey Laurent’s instructions to remain close to him, but he manages better than Laurent half-feared he would. While he does snap back a few times (there’s at least two fights, but he doesn’t start either) he shrugs most of the insults off with aplomb; he jokes with some of the men, shows another a quicker way to erect a tent, joins Jord’s sparring practice in the mornings and wins a grudging respect among those who attend. After the fourth time they walk by Govart telling the story to a group of snickering men, though, he goes and sits on his slave pallet for a long time, head in his hands. Laurent pretends to be asleep.

When they make camp a little earlier than usual on a pleasantly warm and sunny day, Damianos ducks his head into the tent and asks if he can go swimming in the pond up the road, and Laurent is so taken aback by the unfamiliar, cheerful light in his eyes that he says yes. It occurs to him that Damianos is the sort of person who, absent any immediate issue, is just generally in a good mood. Auguste had been like that. He’s still inside the tent, composing a coded message for a scout, when he hears the shouting.

Damianos is soaking wet and naked, and appears supremely unconcerned by both. There are three men (Jord, Orlant and Huet) holding him back, though their grip is loose, and Damianos shrugs them off when he sees Laurent approach. One of the tents at the edge of camp is half-destroyed; the four men who had occupied it are in a similar state. Two stand clutching broken noses, one on the ground is holding his ribs, and the fourth (Laurent recognizes him as the one that had followed Damianos through camp) is howling over his mangled arm, Paschal crouched next to him.

“What happened,” Laurent hears himself say. The four men all try and speak at once; Laurent silences them with a wave of his hand and looks at Damianos.

“I went for a swim,” says Damianos. There’s not a mark on him, except the ones on his back. “They stole my clothes. I came here and asked for them back. We fought. I won.”

“How do you know it was them?”

“I saw one. I was at the other side of the pond.”

“He’s lying,” says one of the mercenaries. Jord silently walks into the wreckage of the tent and returns with a bucket. Damianos’ clothes are stuffed inside. The bucket reeks of piss.

“We would have given them back once we were done with them,” offers the mercenary holding his ribs, with a smile he probably thinks is winning.

“Fetch Govart,” Laurent says calmly.

Orlant leaves to fetch Govart.

They have to wait a long time. A crowd gathers, buzzing with suppressed excitement. The sun is drifting down towards the hills by the time Govart arrives, doing up his belt as he walks. Ambles, really. Sniggers rise up from the men as they see him coming.

“Have I interrupted your fucking?” Laurent enquires.

“No,” says Govart. “I finished. Unless you want me to have the slave again?” He jerks his head at Damianos, still naked.

“The Akielon has not recently ingested a double dose of chalis,” Laurent says. “So I doubt the fight would be in your favor this time. Although you have my permission to try if you think you can manage it.”

There’s an interested ripple of reaction from around the camp. Laurent does not look at Damianos.

“Chalis?” Govart blurts.

“I thought you would need the assistance. Have I tarnished your great victory?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, turning instead to Orlant. “Who was he fucking this time?”

“An omega,” says Orlant.

“An omega,” Laurent repeats. He cocks his head and looks at Govart, who is still gaping at the revelation about the chalis. “I admit, when I denied you the use of my slave I did not expect you to breed your bastards on the omegas of the keep–“

“Men fuck,” Govart snaps.

“Men fuck,” Laurent repeats.

“Yes.” Govart is angry now. “Your problem is that the only one you’ve ever been hot for was your brother–

Laurent welcomes his own rage like an old friend. He pulls his sword from his belt. “Draw,” he says.

Govart draws.

* * *

Laurent gives a speech, afterwards. A lecture, really, warning the men of more work to be done tomorrow. He orders the broken-armed man who had followed Damianos thrown out of the troop, and warns the other three that they risk flogging if they continue to cause trouble. Damianos he snaps at to go find clothes, “and Jord, you will escort him and then wait in my tent. And one of you fetch me something to eat.” Once they leave, there are a few more soldiers to speak to, to dispense warnings and redistribute responsibility. Lazar and Aimeric both receive meaningful glares.

Jord is not in the tent when Laurent arrives. Damianos is there, though, having thankfully found the other set of clothes Laurent had made for him. He hasn’t put on the jacket. The shirt flows over him, white contrasting with his skin. He stands up when Laurent comes in.

They regard each other.

“You can fight,” he says. Laurent had caught a glimpse of him, when he was fighting Govart. There had been a sort of boyish delight on his face. It’s tamped down, now, but still present. “You’re very good,” he adds.

“As good as you?” Laurent doesn’t know why he asks it.

“No,” Damianos says immediately, with the same unselfconscious attitude he’d had to his nakedness, earlier. “But you’re very good.” He says it with… almost excitement.

Laurent used to judge Damianos for his failure to conceal his instinctive reactions. Now he thinks that it’s a brilliant strategy to not bother doing so. He has never understood a person less in his life. Who is _happy_ to discover an enemy is stronger than they thought?

Unless… Laurent had not used his strength _against_ Damianos. He’d defended him, first against the alphas who had stolen his clothing and then against the alpha who had taken him against his will. Auguste used to say omegas found that sort of thing impressive. Being defended.

“Jord went to fetch us supper,” Damianos says. “He told me to offer his apologies if he was not here when you returned.”

Laurent doesn’t say anything.

“Normally I would say a soldier ought to clean his sword himself,” Damianos offers into the quiet. “But I’d be happy to–

“Attend me,” Laurent says.

“… your highness?”

Laurent raises an eyebrow.

Damianos still hesitates. Perhaps he’s remembering–

“Help me get this off.” Laurent snaps, harsher than he intended. “I sweat like a pig earlier.”

Damianos seems to relax a little. “Well, fighting’s hard work,” he says, like a nursemaid humoring a cranky child. He comes across the tent and starts the same fumbling effort on the laces as last time. Laurent has done it himself on the journey so far, and it’s probably saved them time.

Damianos is still… chatting, almost, about the fight. “That parry sequence towards the middle was brilliant,” he says. “Very Veretian. And the footwork–

He really is absurdly tall, even with his muscled neck bent over Laurent’s sleeve. Not like an omega at all. Heat radiates off his body like a furnace. Laurent almost doesn’t blame him for sleeping naked. His fingers are hot on the back of Laurent’s neck when he tugs the jacket over his head.

He moves to Laurent’s trunk to fetch another shirt. Laurent tugs off the one he’s wearing himself, and exchanges it for the new one when Damianos comes back. He relishes the chance to hide his face pulling it over his head, catches Damianos looking away from him abruptly when his head pops out the collar. Laurent realizes too late that he ought to have washed himself in the basin before putting a clean shirt on. He must smell appalling.

“–like me to clean your sword after this? I meant the offer.”

“No, I’ll do it,” Laurent says. “A soldier ought to clean his sword himself.”

Damianos, helping him shrug his jacket on, looks up and delivers a dimpled smile of approval that, from this distance, makes Laurent take a deeper inhale than he’d intended. He gets a lungful of the other man’s scent.

 _Damianos_ doesn’t smell appalling, for all he’d been fighting, and before that bathing in some roadside pond like a creature from a Kemptian fairytale. Laurent can’t believe he ever thought the Akielon was an alpha. He smells like baking bread, like pepper, like clean fresh earth. Like pond lilies.

Too late, Laurent remembers the flowers on the altar.

“Your highness?” someone says from the entrance to the tent. It’s Jord with the supper tray, and Laurent’s never been so relieved to see a person in his life.

“Jord,” Laurent says, jerking away from Damianos with his sleeves undone. Their hands brush. “Get the map out, I’m going to the privy.” He flips Jord the captain’s badge and stalks out of the tent.

Laurent uses the walk to clear the nonsense from his mind. It does not matter whether Damianos is _impressed_ with his prowess. It does not matter whether Damianos is _impressed_ with him in general. It does not matter if any omega is ever _impressed_ with him in that way. In fact, he has gathered that he is not the type of alpha _any_ omega is impressed with, generally, much less one that he–

Well.

Still, Damianos looks at him. Laurent would have to be blind not to notice that. And the offer to sharpen his sword, that was… not a euphemism, Damianos almost certainly does not have the ability to deliver a euphemism without some sort of obnoxious wink. But he looks at Laurent, often. And, if one were to apply the barbaric old rules, Laurent had arguably challenged and defeated another alpha over him.

Laurent pauses outside his tent.

–“didn’t know about the chalis,” Jord is saying quietly. “I’m sorry I made that comment.”

“It’s alright,” Damianos says. “I got a good laugh out of it, to be honest.”

“Are you”– Jord hesitates. “I’m sure if you asked the prince, he wouldn’t… He was angry, in Arles. That was very out of character for him. But he’s not angry with you, anymore, and he needs you for your mind and your sword, more than– well. I’m certain that if you refused him now, he would not… insist.”

“We’re not fucking,” Damianos says tiredly. “I’m not fucking him. He’s not fucking me. There is no fucking happening in this tent.” A pause. Then, sharper, “and I’m not so shattered by Govart’s cock that I couldn’t take another if it was required.”

“That’s not–

“What you meant? I’m fine, Jord. You needn’t look out for me.” More gently, “not that I don’t appreciate it.”

There’s a pause in the conversation. Laurent uses it to throw open the tent flap.

Impressed with him. That was a bad joke.

* * *

The Akielon refuses to allow him to meet his messenger at Nesson-Eloy alone, because of course he does. Laurent allows him to come along, in the same way one might _allow_ a bull to walk through a china shop.

That’s not quite the metaphor. The Akielon is helpful enough as a disguise. He feeds Laurent bread and Laurent can see the want in his eyes, hear the unsteadiness in his breath. His smell gets stronger. Laurent wonders if that means he’s… wet, and then has to stop wondering about it before he embarrasses himself.

He meets with his messenger, then gets in the bath. It’s odd, to think of being an omega. To think of… wanting something inside you, like that. Although perhaps Damianos… perhaps he no longer wants that, given everything.

Perhaps Damianos wants to be inside Laurent. Laurent had seen him naked, in the baths and… before. An impressive cock, for an omega. Or for anyone. Perhaps he wants to bend Laurent over and fuck himself in. Perhaps he wants to make Laurent bleed.

No. Damianos wouldn’t– Damianos wouldn’t want–

Laurent drags himself out of the bath. When he enters the main room, Damianos has brought a tray of food. “You didn’t eat,” he explains, when Laurent gives him a confused look.

Laurent wants to scream. He feels like he’s taken a sword-stroke to the chest. “You can have a bath,” he says, though his dirty wash-water makes for a poor return blow.

Laurent eats half the food, unable to keep himself from sitting in Damianos’ blanket nest before the fire. The Akielon has barely touched the bedding. It can’t possibly smell like him, like that bread and pepper and pond lilies–

Too late, he realizes that his own smell will pollute the nest. Before he reformed the Prince’s Guard, Uncle liked to slip into his chambers and wake him up by sitting at the foot of his bed, hand on his knee or higher, and Laurent wonders what it says about the pair of them, that they can’t even give a man a safe place to sleep–

Damianos comes back in before Laurent can do more than thrash awkwardly, trying to untangle himself from the blankets.

“I didn’t mean to,” Laurent blurts when he sees him, and then snaps his mouth shut before he can say anything even more idiotic.

Frowning– “Didn’t mean to what?”

Laurent finally gets himself untangled. “Your nest,” he says. “It– I had not thought, before I sat down, about the smell, it wasn’t–“ his voice is doing something stupid and horrible– “You can have the bed, I haven’t touched it–“

“It’s fine,” the Akielon says. He sounds alarmed, more than anything else, and he puts a big hand on Laurent’s shoulder before he can stand up. “You can– it’s fine.”

Laurent can’t move, for a moment, staring hard into the fire, afraid to blink in case water spills onto his cheeks. “I didn’t intend to,” he says at last.

“I believe you.” The Akielon sits down next to Laurent, graceful for such a big man. They watch the fire while he picks at the plate between them.

Laurent breathes, in and out, until the lump in his throat shrinks away.

“This is good cheese,” Damianos says, with decisive cheer. “I miss the kinds from Akielos, but Vere has such variety.”

Laurent looks at him incredulously. Damianos smiles with a hint of a challenge.

“Yes,” Laurent says, giving in. “In my country we are capable of remembering more than one recipe at a time.”

“Do you use a recipe to make cheese?”

“As a prince of the blood, I do not excel at cheesemaking,” Laurent says. He means it to sound quelling. It does not.

The next silence softer, gentler. Damianos’ face, when Laurent gives in and looks, is set in that same almost-smile Laurent has been seeing from him more and more often, as if his full lips are always on the verge of breaking into a grin, making that absurd dimple pop out. Laurent thinks the look on his face is _contentment_.

Laurent doesn’t know how he can possibly be _content_. Laurent doesn’t even remember what contentment feels like. Possibly the Akielon is just dim. Placid. Like a cow.

 _He looks like a cow,_ Laurent thinks acidly, trying to ignore the way Damianos’ body sits beside his, gives off heat that rivals the fire in the grate. His figure has none of the spare, slim lines of the male omegas at court, or the curves of the female ones. If he’d grown up in Vere the court would have mocked him mercilessly, for his frank manners and his open grin and his unexpected, blunt rudenesses, amusing as they sometimes are. They would have agreed with the cow comparison. Thick all the way through the body. Wide in the hip and ass. Big brown eyes, eyeing Laurent now in puzzlement.

“You’re in a bad mood again,” Damianos says tentatively.

“You’re in a good mood,” Laurent snaps back.

Damianos raises an eyebrow. “And this is the cause of your bad mood?”

“Why are you–“ Laurent cuts himself off.

Damianos answers the question anyway. “I’ve had a good meal and a warm bath. I had a fine sparring session with Jord this morning. The men are improving. We stand a better chance of winning something with them now than we did yesterday, and we’ll stand an even better chance tomorrow. And they seem to have accepted me, for the most part–“

“You are thankful that men who have spent two weeks mocking you as Govart’s fucktoy have stopped spitting on the ground when you walk past?” Immediately Laurent regrets saying it.

Damianos’ expression darkens. “Congratulations, your highness,” he says. “I’m no longer in a good mood.”

They sit in silence. The fire crackles. Finally, Laurent forces himself to say, _again,_ “That wasn’t what I meant to do.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No,” Laurent says, and it comes out soft and defeated.

More silence. Laurent should probably get up.

“What did you mean to do?” Damianos asks finally, startling Laurent into looking at him. He’s gazing into the fire, face unreadable.

Laurent looks at his hands, watches the firelight dance with his fingers. “It’s one thing to be glad they’ve stopped shouting at you, and fighting each other,” he says finally. “But why should their regard matter to you?”

Damianos frowns. “You should have more loyalty to your men,” he says, reproachful. “They have signed on to die for you.”

“They have signed on for coin and whores,” Laurent says with certainty. “Answer my question.”

“It’s not that I needed their regard,” Damianos says. “I did not expect to receive it. But I am training beside them. I will fight beside them. In the beginning they hated me because they thought I was their enemy. If I was their commander, I like to think I would remind them that there are some things it’s… unacceptable to do, even to an enemy.” He doesn’t look at Laurent. “They’ve been very poorly trained, so far, but I think, with time and effort, they could be– something. Men I would be proud to fight beside.”

“You think they’re worth your time?” It’s a foolish question; they have no other men. Laurent does not know why he asks it.

Damianos eyes him for a moment, searching. “Are we still speaking of the troop?” he asks finally.

Laurent feels his heart clench in his chest like a fist. “You overstep,” he says. “I-“

“Ask your real question,” Damianos says. “Or don’t.”

Fury pricks the insides of Laurent’s throat. Damianos meets his eyes in challenge. Finally, coldly–“Do you still plan to killing me, when this is finished?”

“That’s not your real question.” Damianos is infuriating in his surety. When Laurent doesn’t respond, he rolls his eyes and returns his gaze forward, as if to dismiss him from sight.

Laurent’s jaw flexes. “I had you raped,” he says. “A month ago.”

Damianos stares into the fire like it contains the secrets of the universe. With surprising calm– “That’s not a question.”

“Perhaps you can extrapolate.”

“I’ll not do the work for you, here,” Damianos says.

“You could have killed me,” Laurent says. “In Arles. Before you made your escape. Or– bent me over the nearest piece of furniture and taken your revenge. You– you just brought me dinner. I don’t understand.” Then, because that’s still not a question– “Why?”

Damianos mouth tightens. Finally, not quite angrily– “We’ve had this conversation. You were alone and unarmed. Of course I helped you. And I– why wouldn’t I have brought you dinner? You didn’t eat.”

“Are you still planning on killing me?” Laurent asks again. _You didn’t eat._ He doesn’t know what to do with that.

“I’ve no desire to, at the moment,” Damianos says. “Although”– a hint of amusement creeps into his voice– “I’m sure you could change that, if you were to start talking. It’s only”– he runs a hand through his hair, amusement gone– “I only wonder if I am… obligated.”

Laurent frowns. “Obligated?”

“Well, I was only–“ he touches his stomach– “for a week. And I did… gentle exercise, in the cell, I asked for more greens at dinner. The things one is… supposed to do. And afterwards, I did the proper rituals, for her– for its spirit. I would have loved it, and cared for it, as a mother should. But I don’t know if I am obligated to avenge it. I kept… the dawn walk is the time to speak to a lost loved one, before you give them to the god’s care. I had thought to swear vengeance, but… you did not know, and you left the book...” He shakes his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

Laurent cannot speak. The lump from earlier is back. He thinks he would give anything, _do_ anything, for Damianos to stop talking now.

It only gets worse. “Of course, I was a fool, too. Perhaps had I not… had I not struck you… you meant to provoke me, I know, but…

Laurent wants to vomit. The room spins around him. “No,” he says. “I– I would have made something up. I would have had you flogged regardless. There was nothing you could have done.”

Damianos curls forward, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “If I’d… begged,” he says, with difficulty. “If I had… told you I was with child and begged for mercy, would that have…”

“No,” Laurent blurts. “I– no. I don’t know.” _Did you enjoy being bred like a bitch in heat?_ “But announcing you were pregnant with a bastard in Vere would have ended… poorly.”

Laurent thinks some of the tension comes out of Damianos’ shoulders, but he can’t be sure. His hands run back and forth through his hair again. A soothing gesture, probably, for a man with no one else to soothe him. They go back to watching the fire.

“What would I even have told her?” Damianos says finally. _Her,_ instead of _it._ He doesn’t bother correcting himself this time. “That her father raped me in front of half the Veretian court?”

It occurs to Laurent (wildly, irrelevantly) that if Damianos bore Laurent’s children, he could tell them something similar.

“You would have been an excellent parent,” he says, instead of blurting _that_ out. “She would have known of your love for her, regardless.”

“You hardly know me,” Damianos says, without heat. He’s uncurling, relaxing from his tense ball.

“I’m coming to know you,” Laurent says. “You would have been– good. A good mother. You’ll be a good mother someday.” Why is he talking? Why is he comforting this… murderer? He tries to reach for his anger, for memories of Auguste, but it’s difficult, here with the firelight shining on Damianos beside him.

They sit for a while more. The fire is burning down. They ought to go to bed.

Laurent ought to go to bed. Damianos will sleep on the floor.

“Can I ask you a question?” Damianos asks suddenly.

“I might even answer it,” Laurent says.

“What– never mind.”

“Well, now you have to tell me,” Laurent says. He wouldn’t know how to describe the tone of his own voice.

“I thought on the matter for ten seconds and then arrived at the answer,” Damianos says.

“As proud as I am to hear that, I still want to know.”

Damianos remains silent. Before he can think it through, Laurent nudges him with an elbow. He’s warm, and remarkably solid, and he looks at Laurent with surprise. His cheeks are marked with salt.

“We ought to sleep.” Laurent moves to stand.

“I thought to ask,” Damianos says, and Laurent stops his movement. “I only– I have not seen you be needlessly cruel, except… But, I’m an enemy soldier, clearly, so… it was a foolish question.”

“I am needlessly cruel all the time,” Laurent says. His ears are ringing again. He can’t breathe, again.

The Akielon frowns and shrugs. “I imagine Jord knows you as well as anyone,” he says. “And he says it was out of character.”

“Jord shouldn’t imagine he knows me just because I remember his name on occasion,” Laurent snaps.

“You _are_ cruel when you get nervous,” Damianos observes, but he doesn’t sound angry.

Mother had said something like that, once, after a fight between Laurent and a courtier’s son. _Auguste and your father, they bury it when they get upset, Laurent. You and I, we tend to lash out, to say mean things. It’s something you’ll get better about at as you get older._

Auguste, always willing to overlook Laurent’s faults, had objected to Mother’s pronouncement. _Laurent’s not mean_ , he’d protested, and he’d kept his faith in that until Mother was dead, and then until he’d died himself. Until Damianos had killed him.

What would Auguste say, if he knew Laurent sat before gently-burning embers with the man who’d driven a sword through his gut?

 _Don’t fret, Auguste,_ Laurent imagines himself saying. _I got our revenge, first. I had him raped pregnant in front of a jeering crowd, then beat the child out of him. Aren’t you proud of me?_

“‘Out of character’ is what hypocrites say to assuage their guilt,” Laurent says. “Every action we take is part of our character. That’s what character _is._ ”

Damianos frowns. “I suppose,” he says finally. “But the sum of a man is not the worst things he’s ever done.”

“I enjoyed it,” Laurent says. “I liked the look on your face.” He’s not sure if he’s talking about the whipping or the rape.

A tired sigh. “Go to sleep, Laurent,” the Akielon says. He is, quite evidently, no longer in a good mood.

“I recognized you,” Laurent says, without planning to.

The words land like a disarmament, like the blow that ends the fight. A sword clatters to the ground; Laurent’s not sure who it belongs to. The Akielon freezes. Laurent can see him calculate the meaning of Laurent’s words, then reject his conclusion.

“I don’t–“

“I know who you are, Damianos.”

A breath, like it’s been punched out of him. Damianos brings a hand to rub over his jaw. Laurent watches him.

“Prince Laurent,” he says finally, formally. “When I fought Auguste–“

“Don’t,” Laurent says. He means it to sound vicious, but it’s tired, instead. He’s so tired. He thinks all his fury spilled out onto the floor of the ring with Damianos’ blood, and now he’s deflated and limp as an empty water skin. “I don’t wish to speak of it.”

The Akielon nods reluctantly.

“I have written to kyros Nikandros of Delfeur. You are living proof of Kastor’s coup. I hoped– I hoped to form an alliance with him. I know you will seek to return to Akielos–“

“No,” Damianos says.

“but I– what?”

“No,” Damianos repeats. “I swore to see this through. I will help you against your uncle. We will keep our countries from war.” A pause, barely perceptible. “There will not be another Marlas.”

Laurent closes his eyes, a long slow blink. _You didn’t eat,_ Damianos had said. Laurent catches himself leaning towards him and jerks back upright. Rising to his feet– “I’m going to bed.”

“Good night.”

Laurent searches for hidden meaning in the words and finds none. “Good night, Damianos,” he says finally.

The Akielon gives him that dimpled smile. “Call me Damen,” he says.


End file.
